Juanito steps aside

Rafael Acosta, aka Juanito, announced that he would seek a leave of absence for 59 days immediately after being sworn in as borough president of Iztapalapa on October 1st. The announcement was made after a meeting with Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard. Juanito said he was making the decision for reasons of health and so that “Iztapalapa could live in tranquility.” He said that he would nominate Clara Brugada as his minister of government, which would clear the way for her to take control of the borough government after he steps down. His supporters will get a few posts in the borough government. Noted columnist Salvador García Soto:

Juanito, the comic parody created by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is finished; politics destroyed him. The popular personality who ridiculed [AMLO] and put the entire Mexican Left in check was finally was broken. In exchange for a few public offices and startled by the machinery of power that had raised him up, he wound up ridiculed and humiliated. Thus ends one of the most folkloric and embarrassing episodes of modern Mexican politics.”